Baron Samedi
Critical Thinker
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2006
- Messages
- 476
I was going through some of the old Commentaries from Randi, and came across the one from 20 April 2001. In it, he discusses the Tice Clock and problems testing the equipment for the $1,000,000 Challenge. To quote:
I'm not question if the device works... or actually does anything to the sound system. I'm baffled by this: The advertising claims that anybody can hear the difference. And yet, the actual manufacturer says to Randi that the common person will find it difficult to hear any difference. But isn't the device being marketed and sold to the common person? So my question is, are there laws in place against this kind of dishonesty in advertising?
The same goes for the person who invented a dowsing machine to find gold, silver, etc., and was selling it claiming that anybody could find buried treasure at the beach. Yet when he, the expert, was tested, he claimed that there was suddenly an abnormal amount of sunspots, or a fluctuation in the Earth's magnetic field, or it was too windy, or a person who was not 100% believing was standing too close and thus ruined his readings. So if The Expert in dowsing can so easily have his ability reduced to pure chance, then what hope we the Common People have of using the machine reliably? So in stating that "anybody can find treasures", as opposed to "dowsing experts can be aided in finding treasures", isn't that violating some advertising laws?
Just random questions.
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I'm not question if the device works... or actually does anything to the sound system. I'm baffled by this: The advertising claims that anybody can hear the difference. And yet, the actual manufacturer says to Randi that the common person will find it difficult to hear any difference. But isn't the device being marketed and sold to the common person? So my question is, are there laws in place against this kind of dishonesty in advertising?
The same goes for the person who invented a dowsing machine to find gold, silver, etc., and was selling it claiming that anybody could find buried treasure at the beach. Yet when he, the expert, was tested, he claimed that there was suddenly an abnormal amount of sunspots, or a fluctuation in the Earth's magnetic field, or it was too windy, or a person who was not 100% believing was standing too close and thus ruined his readings. So if The Expert in dowsing can so easily have his ability reduced to pure chance, then what hope we the Common People have of using the machine reliably? So in stating that "anybody can find treasures", as opposed to "dowsing experts can be aided in finding treasures", isn't that violating some advertising laws?
Just random questions.
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